Quotable Quotes (4 page)

The Second Sin

 

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.

—
A
NN
L
ANDERS

 

You are not mature until you expect the unexpected.

—Chicago
Tribune

 

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

—
O
LIVER
W
ENDELL
H
OLMES
S
R.

 

You're never too old to grow up.

—
S
HIRLEY
C
ONRAN

Savages

 

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh—at yourself.

—
E
THEL
B
ARRYMORE

 

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.

—
T
OM
S
TOPPARD

 

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

—
H
ENRI
B
ERGSON

 

Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.

—
S
YDNEY
J
.
H
ARRIS

 

Maturity is reached the day we don't need to be lied to about anything.

—
F
RANK
Y
ERBY

 

Maturity means reacquiring the seriousness one had as a child at play.

—
F
RIEDRICH
N
IETZSCHE

 

Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation.

—
H
AROLD
C
OFFIN

 

A
S WE GROW OLD . . .

 

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

—
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

 

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?

—
S
ATCHEL
P
AIGE

 

Whatever a man's age may be, he can reduce it several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his buttonhole.

—
M
ARK
T
WAIN

 

When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day.

—
M
ARTY
B
UCELLA

in
Woman
magazine

 

It's easier to have the vigor of youth when you're old than the wisdom of age when you're young.

—
R
ICHARD
J
.
N
EEDHAM

A Friend in Needham, or, A Writer's Notebook

 

Adults are obsolete children.

—
D
R.
S
EUSS

 

We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.

—
A
NDRÉ
B
ERTHIAUME

Contretemps

 

After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.

—
C
YNTHIA
O
ZICK

The Paris Review

 

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.

—
M
ARGUERITE
Y
OURCENAR

Memoirs of Hadrian

 

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and just not think about your age.

—
L
UCILLE
B
ALL

 

If youth only knew; if age only could.

—
H
ENRI
E
STIENNE

 

When the problem is not so much resisting temptation as finding it, you may just be getting older.

—Los Angeles Times

 

The person who says youth is a state of mind invariably has more state of mind than youth.

—
American Farm and Home Almanac

 

If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.

—
A
BRAHAM
S
UTZKEVER

 

Most people say that as you get old, you have to give up things. I think you get old because you give up things.

—
S
EN.
T
HEODORE
F
RANCIS
G
REEN

 

You don't stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.

—
M
ICHAEL
P
RITCHARD

 

We are only young once. That is all society can stand.

—
B
OB
B
OWEN

 

I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development.

—
A
LICE
R
OOSEVELT
L
ONGWORTH

 

The joy that is felt at the sight of new-fallen snow is inversely proportional to the age of the beholder.

—
P
AUL
S
WEENEY

 

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.

—
J
EANNE
M
OREAU

 

Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read.

—
F
RANCIS
B
ACON

 

Growing up is usually so painful that people make comedies out of it to soften the memory.

—
J
OHN
G
REENWALD

 

Old age lives minutes slowly, hours quickly; childhood chews hours and swallows minutes.

—
M
ALCOLM DE
C
HAZAL

 

When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I'll know I'm growing old.

—
L
ADY
B
IRD
J
OHNSON

 

Just remember, when you're over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.

—
C
HARLES
S
CHULZ

 

People are living longer than ever before, a phenomenon undoubtedly made necessary by the 30-year mortgage.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

There is always some specific moment when we become aware that our youth is gone; but, years after, we know it was much later.

—
M
IGNON
M
C
L
AUGHLIN

 

It takes about ten years to get used to how old you are.

—
Quoted by R
AYMOND
A
.
M
ICHEL

in
The Leaf

 

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel just as good as ever.

—
D
ON
M
ARQUIS

 

Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature.

—
H
AROLD
C
OFFIN

 

Middle age is when you begin to wonder who put the quicksand into the hourglass of time.

—The Orben Comedy Letter

 

Midlife crisis is that moment when you realize your children and your clothes are about the same age.

—
B
ILL
T
AMMEUS

in Kansas City
Star

 

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.

—
B
ILL
V
AUGHN

 

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

—
V
OLTAIRE

 

I don't know what the big deal is about old age. Old people who shine from inside look 10 to 20 years younger.

—
D
OLLY
P
ARTON

in
Ladies' Home Journal

 

I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old—or being young, for that matter.

—
K
ATHARINE
H
EPBURN

 

Old age is having too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine cabinet.

—Orben's Current Comedy

 

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.

—
V
ICTOR
H
UGO

 

A young boy is a theory; an old man is a fact.

—
E
D
H
OWE

 

Never lose sight of the fact that old age needs so little but needs that little so much.

—
M
ARGARET
W
ILLOUR

 

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

—
H
.
L
.
M
ENCKEN

Prejudices

 

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

—
T
OM
W
ILSON

 

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.

—
J
OHN
N
UVEEN

 

Sometimes the child in one behaves a certain way and the rest of oneself follows behind, slowly shaking its head.

—
J
AMES
E
.
S
HAPIRO

Meditations From the Breakdown Lane

 

The best thing about being young is, if you had to do it all over again, you would still have time.

—
S
ANDRA
C
LARKE

 

If life were just, we would be born old and achieve youth about the time we'd saved enough to enjoy it.

—
J
IM
F
IEBIG

 

Everybody has been young before, but not everybody has been old before.

—
A
FRICAN PROVERB

 

You will stay young as long as you learn, form new habits and don't mind being contradicted.

—
M
ARIE VON
E
BNER-
E
SCHENBACH

 

You are young at any age if you are planning for tomorrow.

—The Sword of the Lord

 

A grownup is a child with layers on.

—
W
OODY
H
ARRELSON

 

When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are.

—
C
ARY
G
RANT

 

To age with dignity and with courage cuts close to what it is to be a man.

—
R
OGER
K
AHN

 

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older.

—
M
ONTAIGNE

 

The older you get, the more important it is not to act your age.

—
A
SHLEIGH
B
RILLIANT

 

The trick is growing up without growing old.

—
C
ASEY
S
TENGEL

 

Growing older is not upsetting; being perceived as old is.

—
K
ENNY
R
OGERS

 

The trouble with class reunions is that old flames have become even older.

—
D
OUG
L
ARSON

 

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

—
O
LIVER
W
ENDELL
H
OLMES
S
R.

 

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

—
B
ETTE
M
IDLER

 

We grow neither better nor worse as we grow old, but more like ourselves.

—
M
AY
L
AMBERTON
B
ECKER

 

The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.

—
W
ALTERS
K
EMP

 

One advantage in growing older is that you can stand for more and fall for less.

—
M
ONTA
C
RANE